


layers of time

by richietosier (forestjoshua)



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, References to Abuse, also /that/ sewer scene didn't happen ok, also stanley uris? pansexual, canon divergent in a way that no one ever moved away from derry, i'm sorry this is really heterosexual but these two deserve a story, implied (past) other ships, implied backgroud reddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 05:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13827627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestjoshua/pseuds/richietosier
Summary: “Once upon a time there was a girl with red hair…”The story of Stanley and Beverly."No, this is a story about the another woman of his life. Well, she had been a girl of seventeen back then.The more Stanley delved into the past, the closer she became."





	layers of time

”You were my first, you know.”

Patty’s words snap Stanley out of his trance. For several minutes, he has just been staring at something ‒ a picture of his old childhood friend, Bill Denbrough, with his wife. The woman has the same hair, the curves, the tilt of a smile, than ‒

Stan’s thoughts arrive to a screeching halt. _Who?_

Sometimes he worries ‒ he can barely recall their faces, their last names. The sound of their laughter only echoes in his dreams, fragile, gone in the morning.

 _“The Greatest Horror Author of His Generation”_ the title of the article screams, in black bold letters. The article itself isn’t very impressive ‒ however, it’s one of those which always catch Stanley’s attention. The name _Denbrough_ follows him everywhere, even though Stan can’t surely tell anything about Bill. Did he always want to be an author? And what was the name of his little brother, that one who died during the rainiest day of the month, years and years ago?

Bill’s arm is around his wife, his head turned towards her, adoring look in his eyes like the woman is everything that matters to him in the world. Stan can relate ‒ he would do _anything_ for his Patty. The woman’s smile is frozen on the paper. The caption doesn’t mention her name. It only says “William Denbrough with his wife” ‒ her name lost, like ‒

“Stanley? Honey?”

Stan, who had fallen into trance again, spiraled down the depths of the memory of his brittle childhood, looks at his wife this time around.

“Mm, yes, Baby Love?” he asks. A faint blush dusts Patty’s cheeks, matching the pastel color of her blouse. She looks good in every color ‒ unexceptionally beautiful. Looking at Stan under her long curled lashes, Patty stammers with her words,

“I was just thinking… I don’t remember if I ever told you, but you were my first.”

How sweet and lovely she was! Stan felt a warmth spread through his chest while looking at her, neatly seated on the loveseat, knees brought together, cheeks pink, and hair recently brushed and shiny. He had never felt like this towards another creature, except ‒

“First what?” Maybe the question was dumb. Maybe Stan just liked to watch Patty squirm and blush.

“You know what I mean, Stanley,” She says. Her words have an edge, but they’re still gentle.

Oh, he does. _Don’t hurt me,_ she had whispered on their wedding night months ago. And Stan never would. Maybe she had never said it out loud, but Stanley had known.

Stanley also knows that Patty is aware that she wasn’t his first.

This conversation ‒ this little chat a husband and a wife are having ‒ triggers something in Stan’s memory. He thinks about all his firsts when it comes to love.

 

\--

 

He had always been a boy full of love. Perhaps it was a quality in him that didn’t show first and foremost. People most often described him as neat and strict and organized ‒ even dry, or rude. But there was a huge soft side to Stanley Uris ‒ something Patty liked to constantly tease him about. Stan would have liked people to see this side of him more often. Yes, he could be tidy to the point of obsession which made people be even wary of him, but in the core he was a kind and loyal young man, full to the brim with love.

Stan’s first crush had been Bill Denbrough ‒ that’s how it went in their tight-knitted friend group. Everyone adored Bill, looked up to him at least. Stan’s feelings for Bill hadn’t been blind worship like Eddie’s. That was something every one of them could see ‒ what Bill meant for Eddie. Stan’s feelings were close to comfort. For months, he had felt giddy whenever Bill had happened to glance at him. Then, one day, the feelings had faded to normal friendship again.

Stan had adored Mike Hanlon next. For months, he had sighed thinking about him, spent humongous lengths of time at the Hanlon family warm, just watching and admiring Mike. After Mike, Stan had been _convinced_ he was at least half way in love with Richie Tozier. It had been perhaps the weirdest three weeks of his life, consumed by “kind of” dating Richie Tozier. Richie was a lot. He was _loud_ and _everywhere._ It had been three weeks of impromptu proclamations of love, poems ‒ penned by Ben Hanscom, not Richie ‒ slipped into Stan’s pockets, and murderous glances from Eddie Kaspbrak who ‒ at that point ‒ had been over Bill and head over heels for Richie instead. That’s how it went in their tight-knitted friend group. Love ‒ love all around, in never-ending circles.

Richie had been Stan’s first kiss. Now that Stan look back to it, it may have been that Richie was the first kiss of everyone in their friend group. Exactly three weeks after that kiss, that still to this days made butterflies erupt in Stan’s stomach, Richie had walked up to Stan, and said that he was madly in love with Eddie instead.

Though Stan had known this deep inside and was happy for Eddie, that was the worst way he had ever been dumped. He complained about Richie for weeks to Mike until Mike’s ears must have bled because the amount of complaining he had to listen.

Mike would have _never_ treated Stan like Richie.

And by the next month, Richie was old news.

Then there was someone _outside_ the Losers’ Club, which seemed odd to Stan. Except not really. He hadn’t ended up marrying Bill or Richie or ‒ He had married Patty instead, and was insanely happy. And insanely lucky, for having a seventh soulmate.

This girl, long and long before Patty, was called Elizabeth. She was one of those girls who was almost as rich and posh as Greta Bowie or Sally Mueller but still not good enough for their company. She had the loveliest blue eyes, like violets or forget-me-nots or some other pretty flowers. Her hair spilled down her back in smooth light brown ringlets. She was always Elizabeth, never Lizzie or Betty or El, and her being _Elizabeth_ made her even more enchanting.

Elizabeth ‒ whose last name Stan couldn’t recall and never would ‒ was intoxicating to him. In the end, this “love” had lasted shorter than Richie ‒ barely two weeks, two weeks of Stanley walking with his head in the clouds, the dumbest smile on his lips that the rest of the Losers’ Club teased him relentlessly about.

Barely two weeks of Stanley slipping poems ‒ penned by Ben Hanscom, not Stanley ‒ into Elizabeth’s backpack, until it all came to screeching halt.

One day Stan had been waiting outside of Elizabeth’s classroom, waiting for her to exit and to catch a glimpse of her sweet face. She had came, one of the last students to exit, walking with her friend who was smaller than Eddie Kaspbrak, giggling so wildly that her neat curls bounced on her shoulders.

What they, Elizabeth and her little friend, had been giggling about made Stan’s blood turn to ice in his veins. They walked past Stan, like he was air to them. He had always been air to them ‒ to darling Elizabeth. Stan remembered watching her walk away and seeing everything beautiful in her turn to ugly.

He had stomped over to his friends, fuming.

“Hey, Stan the Man!” had Richie greeted, arm around Eddie’s narrow shoulders. “Trouble in paradise?” His wink had made Stanley’s stomach churn.

“I finished your poem,” said sweet Ben Hanscom, who was worth at least seventeen Elizabeths, offering Stan a piece of paper containing another poem for him to secretly give to Elizabeth.

She had no right! Maybe Stanley wasn’t the most Jewish of Jewish people, but she had _no_ right to speak about his religion, his _culture,_ to laugh, to _ridicule_ ‒

Stanley had shredded the poem to pieces, as minuscule as possible, and never looked in Elizabeth’s direction ever again.

His trip to the past has made him realize ‒ there is a story he wants to tell Patty. Not about Elizabeth, she isn’t worth anything, just a slightly painful memory. What they said ‒ you can’t judge a book by it’s cover ‒ was true. Not all pretty people were kind and sweet and understanding as Patty.

No, this is a story about the another woman of his life. Well, she had been a girl of seventeen back then.

The more Stanley delved into the past, the closer _she_ became.

The more he realized that she saw her in everything. She was a person who never left your life, no matter how many layers of time and dust tried to bury her.

He stands up, walks over to Patty. Patty’s eyes are wide, on the brink of confusion.

“Patty, Baby Love, do you want to know about my first?” he asks her, kneeling in front of her like a mere knight in front of a queen.

Patty lets Stan play with her fingers. “Your first boyfriend? I know of Richie Tozier, Stanley,” she says, but Stan shakes his head.

“No, Pat. There was… Someone else. Some other first. I’d like you to know about her. She was…”

Stan can’t finish the sentence, but it doesn’t matter. Patty is smiling her kind and understanding smile at him. Gently, she pulls one of her hands out of Stan’s loose grasp and places it on his cheek.

“Tell me about her.” Her voice is soft as a whisper.

“Once upon a time there was a girl with red hair…”

 

\--

 

 _January embers,_ had Ben Hanscom written about her. Stan knew of the poem ‒ she had showed it to him, flush coloring her cheeks underneath the freckles. Those were the two words Stanley first thought of when he thought about her, regardless of those words belonging to Ben and Ben alone.

Beverly Marsh wasn’t anyone’s girl, but if she ever came close to be someone’s, that was Ben Hanscom. In his heart Stanley knew Ben was the one of them Beverly would end up with. That didn’t stop faith, though. For a moment, it threw Stan and Beverly towards each other, to revolve around each other for one sweet moment, long enough for it to make an impact on Stan’s life.

He never saw Beverly coming.

It all started on a Friday afternoon after school. Time was tricky and it had made Stanley forget how long it actually lasted, but he remembered that he had cherished every second of Stan and Beverly being StanAndBeverly.

It was a brisk afternoon. It was fall ‒ three days after Stanley’s seventeenth birthday. The trees were orange, the wind so chilly it bit Stan’s cheeks red and everything was beautiful.

Stan felt invincible. He felt like nothing in the world could go wrong. Nothing _had_ gone wrong, until he’d seen a redheaded girl sitting on the curb, bleeding into her hands.

“Beverly?” had Stanley said, the name leaving his lips as a startled squeak.

The look in her eyes reminded Stan of times he had fought to forget. It was gone in a nanosecond, replaced by a painful smile.

“Hi, Stanley,” said Beverly, although it sounded more like “Hi, Stabley.” A burst of blood shot out of her nose, dripping on her open palm, continuing its way between her fingers on the sidewalk.

“Oh, dear…” Stan gasped, rushing forward. He pulled off the scarf aroud his neck, bundling it and shoving it as gently as possible against the blood flow from Beverly’s nose.

“Bev, what happened?” Stan asked, unable to hide the distress in his voice. Beverly swatted away Stan’s hand that was trying to touch her cheek, but she took a hold of the scarf, pressing it firmly against her nose.

“I’m fine,” Beverly said, her voice dark. “Thank you, could you just go now?”

Stanley didn’t move. He stood there ‒ staring at the bleeding, sulking girl whose shoulders were shaking slightly.

“No, Beverly,” Stan said, “Follow me.”

He took her home. He patched her up. And the whole time ‒ she looked at him with something different in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Beverly said the next Monday morning, at the schoolyard. Stan heard her behind him, her voice traveling clear in the cold autumn air.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Stan had answered sternly, turning around. She had looked beautiful that morning ‒ even though she always looked beautiful. Hair famous red hair peaked out underneath her worn out cap, barely reaching her shoulders. Her eyes ‒ they were sharp and clear, framed by thick lashes. Her skin had lost its summer tan, pale like milk except for the freckles, and unmarred, bruiseless, despite the hurt she had gone through last Friday.

Ben Hanscom may have thought about fire whenever she glanced at Beverly, but to Stan she was an ice princess.

Beverly’s mouth twitched ‒ her lips were chapped, but deliciously pink. When she stood there, hugging herself so that the wind wouldn’t bite her tender skin through her thin jacket, chin turned boldly upwards, it dawned on Stan _why_ Bill and Ben and Richie had been crazy about her when she had first waltzed into their lives.

Or maybe not. Maybe Stanley saw something different in her.

She nodded, and turned around, going her way, leaving Stan to stand and stare at her skinny legs, clad by thin nylon stockings.

After school, Stan was just going to walk home to work on an essay, when someone grabbed his elbow.

“I have your scarf,” Beverly said. She was slightly out breath, most likely because she had had to run to catch up with Stan. “Sorry, I forgot to give it to you in the morning.”

In one of her hands, she gripped Stanley’s old, dark green scarf, devoid of any blood stains. Slowly, Stan reached out to take and marvel at it. He had a sudden desire to press it against his face and find out whether it smelled like Beverly.

“I took it to the laundromat,” she said, “Do you remember? The same one we used when we were kids…” she trailed of, voice gone incredibly soft.

Stan remembered ‒ the sink and the blood and the rags. They had an unspoken rule not to talk about it, so he just nodded.

Beverly seemed to hesitate, biting her lip. “Come with me,” she finally said, grabbing Stanley’s hand with her gloveless fingers.

Now that they were all grown, the Losers’ Club rarely went to the Quarry anymore. That’s why Stan was surprised Beverly led him to the familiar cliff. She sat down on a rock near the edge and dug out a pack of cigarette from her coat pocket.

“You mind if I smoke?” she asked, a cigarette already hanging between her lips.

Stanley, whose parents were smokers, and who had spent enough time with Richie, shook his head.

“You want one?” Beverly shot another question, making Stan shake his head again. She lit the cigarette, inhaled, and exhaled with a deep sigh.

Stanley, remembering the blood dripping between Beverly’s fingers on the Friday afternoon, the bruises that from time to time adorned her face and arms, the desperate voice of a young girl saying _please, my dad can’t know!_ couldn’t stop himself from asking,

“Bev, is everything alright? At home?”

Beverly turned to look at Stan, letting the cigarette just smolder. Her eyes were glassy. She blinked slowly, then chuckled. Stan didn’t like that sound. It was empty and hollow ‒ everything that Beverly _wasn’t,_ or shouldn’t be.

“You know what, Stanley,” she said slowly, her voice low and distant, like it was echoing from another dimension, “Of all my boys ‒ all of _you ‒_ Ben is my favorite, but sometimes…” She looked at Stan, her expression something soft but desperate, something he had never seen on her face before. “Sometimes I think it might be you.”

“Me?” Stan breathed, watching as Beverly discharged of the cigarette. He looked at her long fingers, the perfectly shaped nails that had pearly polish on them. He wanted to reach over and take her hand into his, feel its cool smoothness, but wouldn’t dare in this fragile moment.

Stanley thought he had never been alone with Beverly before. There was always someone else, and even though he thoroughly enjoyed her company, he never sought it out.

It was peculiar, at least.

Beverly stared at him, a faint smile on her lips and her eyes glittering with softness. “Yes,” she whispered, or perhaps it was the wind. “I- I don’t know why,” she continued, “You’re just you. You’re Stanley, and it makes everything in me warm and steady.”

Those words Stan stashed into his heart. They became a part of him, something he treasured, something he thought about at nights when he couldn’t sleep.

“Beverly,” Stanley said. It sounded a lot like _kiss me,_ and so Beverly did.

At first, she tasted a lot like Richie ‒ ash mixed with blood, but the deeper and longer Stanley kissed her, the more she tasted like _Beverly._

With a gasp, she interrupted their kiss. The most important kiss of Stan’s life, until his lips met with Patricia Plum’s.

Beverly ‒ his Beverly, his fire-hearted ice princess stared at him in awe, until storm clouds began gathering behind her eyes.

She stood up and left, and Stanley didn’t stop her because everything that happened, happened on her terms.

Beverly didn’t come to school the next day, but on Wednesday, she was waiting for Stanley at the corner of Whitburn Road and St. George’s Street, near their school.

“Good morning!” she chirped with the same lips that had blessed Stanley with a kiss. Then, she took Stanley’s hand and they walked together to school.

It happened the next day, and the next, and the next until it became a habit.

And Beverly ‒ she sought out Stanley’s company more and more, so often that Stanley couldn’t help noticing the curious glances Eddie threw at them, or the jealous ones from Ben.

She would kiss him, and those times Stanley would feel bad for Ben who truly deserved Beverly’s kisses.

It was like sneaking around ‒ in vain, because in the Losers’ Club all love was allowed and none of their friends would have minded. They have all dated each other in the past ‒ like Stan and Richie, and Beverly and Bill, and Richie and Eddie, and Bill and Mike. There was nothing odd about Beverly and Stan being together ‒ because that they were, even though they didn’t talk about it ‒ it was like a law of the universe.

Still, they kept it to themselves. They recognized the fragility, the bittersweetness in them. They knew it wouldn’t last forever. Despite that, Stan sometimes thought about introducing Beverly to his parents. His mother wouldn’t be pleased that she wasn’t Jewish, but at least she wasn’t _that Tozier boy._

And then ‒

There was the _night._

All of the Losers’ Club was aware of how Richie had the habit of climbing through Eddie’s window at night. That was Stanley’s first thought when he heard something tapping on his window ‒ that it was Richie, because it was such a _Richie_ thing to do.

It wasn’t. It was Beverly ‒ soaking wet because of the rain outside. Her mascara had run on her bruised cheeks, and her hair was dark red, sticking to her neck.

“Let me in,” she almost pleaded, when Stan had opened the window. He let the girl stumble through, not mentioning how the wet puddles she left on the floor bothered him.

“Are your parents home?” Beverly asked, shaking from head to toe. She sat on Stan’s bed, wetting the covers, letting Stan wrap a blanket around her.

“No, they went to the synagogue,” Stanley says. Beverly shivers against him, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“I hate him,” she whispered with a sniffle. “I- What the hell is wrong with him? Why does he treat me this way? I’m sorry, I usually go to Richie, after‒”

“Your father,” Stanley said. _The bruises on her cheeks._ “I swear, I’ll end him if ‒”

“Make love to me,” Beverly interrupted.

“What?” Stan gasped.

“Please,” Beverly whispered against his lips. “I need you. Make love to me.”

Stanley did. He made love to her gently and slowly. He worshipped her, unable to tell whether the wetness on her pale cheeks was tears or just the remnants of the rain.

Stan could sense something is wrong the next morning. Beverly wasn’t waiting for him at the street corner.

 _Maybe she caught the cold,_ Stanley thinks. She had been dripping wet. Stanley’s sheets were still damp.

He knew something was _really_ wrong when he approached his group of friends, all huddled around an upset looking Richie, faces solemn, no Beverly in sight. Eddie was rubbing Richie’s shoulders for comfort.

“Hey,” Stanley greeted them wanly.

They looked at him with stormy expressions. Did they know? Did they not approve?

“You don’t know?” Eddie said with a small voice, his brown eyes full of tears.

“Know what?” Stan insisted, feeling weaker and weaker.

“Beverly!” Richie suddenly wailed, “She’s run away! She came by my house last night, all upset. She’s left Derry behind!”

Stanley’s heart skipped a beat, then another, until it slowly started its rhythm again. He could still feel Beverly’s curls between his fingers, her gasping, teeth scraping his shoulder, her legs slipping around him‒

“And you just let her go?” Stanley shouted sharply at Richie, couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t stop the desperate note of his voice, the shake of his hands…

If it was possible, Richie looked even more upset. That didn’t happen often. Eddie’s hold on his Richie tightened.

“She’s allowed to do what she wants!” he argued, “Besides, I thought you knew something! Do you think we don’t know that you two have been sneaking around?”

Everyone stared at Stanley and he couldn’t stand them. He loved them, but he couldn’t stand their eyes ‒ Eddie’s angry, Ben’s betrayed, Richie’s disappointed, Bill’s pitying, Mike’s concerned.

He couldn’t stand them, and so he turned around, and ran, ran home, told his mother he was sick.

Last time he had seen Beverly Marsh had been last night when he had been watching her from his window after they had made love, getting further and further away in the rain.

Had she gone straight to Richie? Why hadn’t she said anything to Stan?

The painful truth was that Stan would have let her go as well. Because everything worked on her terms.

Stanley Uris loved Beverly Marsh, _love_ loved her two more months after her departure, until she became a scar on all of her boys’ hearts, buried by layers of time.

 

\--

 

This was all there was.

This was the story of Stan and Beverly, and now Patty knows everything.

She smiles. “Beverly seems nice. I truly wish she found her happiness, maybe it was the best for her to get out of that town, away from her father. I wish I could meet her.”

“She would like you,” Stan admits. _She would._ “Maybe some day.”

“Some day,” Patty agrees, leaning her forehead on Stan’s.

They go to bed together, and the following day the phone rings.

It’s Mike Hanlon, and the first thing in Stanley’s mind is _Beverly._ It feels like his heart is beating in the correct rhythm, after _years._

After the call, he looks at Patty, memorizing her every feature. “I think I’ll take a bath,” he says to her.

**Author's Note:**

> hi. so i really really love these two. and ship them. anyway, hope you liked this!
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://richietosier.tumblr.com)


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